Game of Thrones stars dodge Magheramorne rockfall

Victoria Leonard

The stars and crew of epic fantasy drama Game of Thrones have reportedly dodged a real-life action sequence after a rockfall during filming at Magheramorne quarry.

The local filming location doubles as the Nights Watch fortress Castle Black and The Wall as well as the Wildling village of Hardhome in the HBO’s hit TV series.

American showbiz site Entertainment Weekly has reported that the cast and crew were recently in the middle of filming scenes when heavy rainfall disrupted the quarry’s seismic profile, causing those on set to head for shelter.

Owen Teale, who plays Nights Watch villain Ser Allister Thorne, revealed: “A piece of rock the size of a London townhouse just fell.”

Show-runner Dan Weiss added: “Once people saw the small pebbles start to come down that turned into slightly larger pebbles, everybody made the group decision to immediately step away from the set.”

It was reported that no-one was hurt during the incident, which occured early in the production year.

However, it did create a timetable challenge for executive producer Bernie Caulfield and producer Chris Newman, who map the show’s complex shooting schedule months in advance.

“Bernie and Chris already have hardest scheduling job in the film and TV industry, and they had this thrown into the works too, which caused them to drastically reschedule the whole season on the fly,” Weiss continued.

“But they did it, and we got everything we needed in that quarry after it was seismically shored up and netted and proper protection measures were taken.

“It actually worked out for the best – some of the stuff we were shooting in that location benefited from the additional prep time the rockslide gave us.”